Ed Whitacre is credited with taking over the corporate reins at General Motors (GM) when the automotive manufacturer was on the brink of bankruptcy during 2009 and turned the company around in magnificent fashion. In this business memoir, the native Texan explores his unique management style, business acumen and patriotism. It was President Obama who reached out to Ed Whitacre to come out of retirement and take over GM in 2009.

Driven: Inside BMW, the Most Admired Car Company in the World

BMW is arguably the most admired carmaker in the world. It's financial performance is the envy of its competitors, and BMW products inspire near-fanatical loyalty. While many carmakers struggle with falling sales, profits and market share, demand for BMWs continues to grow, frequently outpacing production. Now, David Kiley goes inside the fabled German automaker to see how it does what it does so well.

Icons and Idiots: Straight Talk on Leadership

Lutz is revealing the leaders - good, bad, and ugly - who made the strongest impression on him throughout his career. Icons and Idiots is a collection of shocking and often hilarious true stories and the lessons Lutz drew from them. From enduring the sadism of a Marine Corps drill instructor, to working with a washed-up alcoholic, to taking over the reins from a convicted felon, he reflects on the complexities of all-too-human leaders.

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround

In 1990, IBM had its most profitable year ever. By 1993, the company was on a watch list for extinction, victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.

The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, IBM, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices That Changed the Course of Business.

Decisions equal success - nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive - they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension.

American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

At the end of 2008, Ford Motor Company was just months away from running out of cash. With the auto industry careening toward ruin, Congress offered all three Detroit automakers a bailout. General Motors and Chrysler grabbed the taxpayer lifeline, but Ford decided to save itself. Under the leadership of charismatic CEO Alan Mulally, Ford had already put together a bold plan to unify its divided global operations, transform its lackluster product lineup, and overcome a dys­functional culture of infighting, backstabbing, and excuses.

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

In The Outsiders, you'll learn the traits and methods striking for their consistency and relentless rationality that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance. Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these "outsiders" shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company's long-term value.

Iacocca: Lee Iacocca Talks about Iacocca The Man, The Legend, and His History-Making Bestseller

He's an American legend, a straight-shooting businessman who brought Chrysler back from the brink and in the process became a media celebrity, newsmaker, and a man many had urged to run for president. The son of Italian immigrants, Lee Iacocca rose spectacularly through the ranks of Ford Motor Company to become its president, only to be toppled eight years later in a power play that should have shattered him.

The Turnaround Formula

In The Turnaround Formula, Marvin reveals his secrets in a step-by-step program that will begin to have an effect from day one. Your company will take on a lean, mean, more aggressive posture that gives it an edge in today's super-competitive marketplace. For people looking to revive a failing company or those interested in strengthening a healthy one, The Turnaround Formula is the sure-fire prescription for renewed profits.

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

On January 26, 2009, during the depth of the financial crisis and having just completed five years as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy F. Geithner was sworn in by President Barack Obama as the 75th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Now, in a strikingly candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, Geithner takes listeners behind the scenes during the darkest moments of the crisis.

Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business

In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow.

Throughout history, there are some events that stand out as so groundbreaking that they completely change life as we know it. The Apollo moon landing of 1969 was one of those events - the invention of the Apple personal computer was another. In this book, John Sculley - former CEO of both Pepsi and Apple - claims we are in an era that is giving birth to numerous groundbreaking events and inventions - moonshots - that will change the way we live and work for generations to come.

The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire

J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.

Call Me Ted

An innovative entrepreneur, outspoken nonconformist, and groundbreaking philanthropist, Ted Turner is truly a living legend, and now, for the first time, he reveals his personal story. From his difficult childhood to the successful launch of his media empire to the catastrophic AOL/Time Warner deal, Turner spares no details or feelings and takes the reader along on a wild and sometimes bumpy ride.

Jack: Straight from the Gut

Jack Welch lifted GE from a conglomerate with a market value of about $12 billion to one of the world's largest and most widely-admired companies, with a market value of more than $500 billion. In Jack, the author reveals the strategies and philosophies that put him at the top.

The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything

What do Dunkin' Donuts, J. Crew, Toys "R" Us, and Burger King have in common? They are all currently or just recently were owned, operated, and controlled by private equity firms. The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything takes the listener behind the scenes of these firms: their famous billionaire founders, the overlapping stories of their creation and evolution, and the outsized ambitions that led a group of clever bankers from small shops into powerhouse titans of capital.

Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels: A Practical Guide

This book adds examples from over twenty years of experience by Dr. Liker in working with companies outside of Toyota. This audiobook treats you as a student who will be actively engaged in developing lean leader skills as you read. It acts as a tutorial for beginning the journey!

The People's Tycoon

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford's outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism.

The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was an immigrant, a poor boy who worked in a cotton mill, a man who amassed a great fortune as a steel baron and then became one of the most generous and influential philanthropists the world has ever known. His famous dictum, that he who dies rich dies disgraced, has inspired philanthropists and philanthropic enterprises for generations. During his own lifetime, he put his ideas into action by creating a family of organizations that continue to work toward improving the human condition.

The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom and Enlightenment

What happens when a young Wall Street investment banker spends a small fortune to have lunch with Warren Buffett? He becomes a real value investor. In this fascinating inside story, Guy Spier details his career from Harvard MBA to hedge fund manager. But the path was not so straightforward. Spier reveals his transformation from a Gordon Gekko wannabe, driven by greed, to a sophisticated investor who enjoys success without selling his soul to the highest bidder.

Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry

This first real look inside Team Obama mixes political warfare and big-business shakeups in equal proportions, and comes from a uniquely informed source. Steve Rattner is not just the man brought in by the president to save the auto industry, he is a former New York Times financial reporter who also earned a place among the top tier of Wall Street's most informed investment bankers and corporate experts.

Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership

In Leading Minds, Gardner and his research associate at Harvard Project Zero, Emma Laskin, apply a cognitive lens to leadership, drawing on Gardner's groundbreaking work on intelligence and creativity to offer fascinating revelations about the minds of leaders and those who follow them. This reissue includes a new introduction by the author.

Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!

When Yahoo hired star Google executive Mayer to be its CEO in 2012 employees rejoiced. They put posters on the walls throughout Yahoo's California headquarters. On them there was Mayer's face and one word: HOPE. But one year later, Mayer sat in front of those same employees in a huge cafeteria on Yahoo's campus and took the beating of her life. Her hair wet and her tone defensive, Mayer read and answered a series of employee-posed questions challenging the basic elements of her plan.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Lee Iacocca believes that leaders are made in times of crisis - such as today. In Where Have All the Leaders Gone? he offers his no-nonsense, straight-up assessments of the American politicians most likely to run for president in 2008. He also shares his lessons learned, and issues a call to action to summon Americans back to their roots in hard work, common sense, integrity, generosity, and optimism. Where have all the leaders gone? Lee Iacocca has the answer.

The New York Times Pocket MBA: The Board of Directors

Learn the 25 keys to the role of the Board of Directors and the important points in helping to guide the Board's policy and strategy. The Board of Directors is part of the New York Times Pocket MBA Series, a 12-volume reference tool for all businesspersons.

Publisher's Summary

Ed Whitacre is credited with taking over the corporate reins at General Motors (GM) when the automotive manufacturer was on the brink of bankruptcy during 2009 and turned the company around in magnificent fashion. In this business memoir, the native Texan explores his unique management style, business acumen, and patriotism.

It was President Obama who reached out to Ed Whitacre to come out of retirement and take over GM in 2009. A down-to-earth, no-nonsense Texas native with a distinctive Texas twang in his voice, Whitacre was reluctant to come out of retirement to work at GM.

But Whitacre is that rare CEO with great charisma and extraordinary management instincts. And when he got to Detroit, he started to whittle down the corporate bureaucracy right away - and got GM back on track in record time

Before being pulled out of retirement to run GM by Obama, Ed Whitacre had spent his entire corporate career in the telecom business, where he ultimately ended up running AT&T.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

I was completely surprised by this book, it is great listen. I was sorry when it ended.

Having worked in the Telecommunications industry for 10 years, I had a completely different opinion of Edward Whitacre. I thought he was ruthlessly and egomaniacal. I got this opinion during the work that I did for competitors and eventual takeover targets of SBC, including the old AT&T and AT&T wireless.

By listening to the book, instead what I learned is that he is true leader, not afraid to get into the details when required, and able to make tough calls. I found his logic on potential SBC acquisitions especially compelling: Calling one target, AT&T wireless, beach front property that would not be on the market again, so they had to pay whatever it took.

My only real disappointment, and clearly Ed’s: that he did not stay on longer at GM. I think it would have been great if he could have stayed as CEO for a few years.

This is well written and entertaining. You learn a lot about how to properly run a business from what he coveres. He goes deep into his successes and mistakes. In the end his point is that you have to stick to proper principals of good human behavior and deal with the outcome. In the end you will be better off.

There are very few business boks that I would read again and again since the content and lessons they contain are are timeless. This is one of those books. Ed Whitacre's writing of this book and his reading and inflections in this audio book, made it so enjoyable I did not want the book to end. Ed Whitacre describes the use of common sense and down to earth values in successfully running two of the world's most recognized companies. For me, it was a very refreshing book from many other business or leadership books that preach a formula for success in the dog eat dog world of business. As Ed says, it all boils down to people.

I wanted much more detail, as based on the historical circumstances there could be much more learned from this case study. Mr. Whitacre is sincere of his love for America and the two companies, AT&T and GM, that he so importantly served. I wish he would have given better examples of the battles internally as he rose through (Southwestern Bell) AT&T and ultimately aided GM as the emerged from bankruptcy. In essence, Whitacre's style is to be a straight-talker and be a man of the people. I know there is much more to his management style, but unfortunately we don't learn that here. This is a very general analysis of his career, and I found it wanting.

This is still a good book, and I think it a "feel-good" analysis of the very public auto bailout.

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